


Hospice

by goodnightfern



Series: The Mothership Connection [3]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Bangkok, Head trauma, Spite Flowers, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-31 00:27:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13963359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: 1981. Two phone calls, two hospital rooms, and three tons of heroin.





	Hospice

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, this is the other side of [this.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13223535/chapters/30247302) A prequel to a prologue?

There was some romantic fantasy of being the first thing John saw when he woke up. The patient war widow who never gave up hope, starting at the first twitch of fingers on the coverlet - no, in Adam’s own hand. Or perhaps he'd give in during some lonely moonlit vigil to kiss those papery lips, and that soft touch would be enough to wake his prince.  

Instead he gets the call from Dhekelia in the basement of the Lubyanka Square HQ.

The CIA operative is one of his sisters. Must be from the same school as Eva to be discovered so quickly by him, and like any woman of Eva’s caliber not even sexual violence is a threat. Degradation, at least, provides mild offense; she’s grown accustomed to drinking champagne on the arms of presidents. Forgot the taste of piss from a bloodstained floor.

Ocelot washes his hands before taking the call.

“Forty-eight hours,” he tells the doctor, and hangs up.

Miller always says, when allowed to set your own deadline, overestimate generously. Not too generous, or else the client will suspect you of slipshod work. Just enough to prepare for every single possible eventuality and give the client something to tell his friends about. Ocelot doubts his flight to Cyprus will crash and leave him to swim across the Mediterranean, but you never know.

Back at work, Ocelot runs his hands up her shapely leg. Kneads her silicone breast while drawing invisible lines in his head. The Amazons of legend cut off their right breast for some reason or another, he’s heard. Perhaps that would make her a better warrior, too, but the damage is easily undone. 

So the leg, then. He goes back down to her feet. The soles of her feet are already torn to shreds, a little technique the mujaheddin call _falaqa_ , but losing a foot sounds too simple. She could hobble on the stump. Halfway through the shin, perhaps. It’ll be difficult for her to get a prosthetic, and the splintered bone will take ages to heal. Enough time to let her most valuable asset go to waste.

He gives her time to ease into the whole concept he's going for. Ties off her thigh, sorts through his tools, inspects the edge of a bone saw. He knows it's real to her the moment her foot twitches, but even after she gives up what he'll put in his official report what Ocelot wants does indeed cost her a leg. 

Adam makes it to Cyprus sixteen hours ahead of schedule with three new names on his list. He buys fresh flowers from a stall in a whitewashed village before dashing up the hospital stairs and down the halls with his heart in this throat -

Oh. It's the other one.

His eyes are open, he’s responding to audiovisual stimuli, and the EEG monitor implies that he recognizes Ocelot’s voice. Higher brain functions are yet offline, but Ocelot can work with this.

Ocelot dabs the drool off his chin with a handkerchief and decides that’s romantic enough.

The anonymous medic was a large man before the coma wasted his body to nothing. Dark-featured, ruddy complexion. Once they get the face right, it’ll do. Ocelot thinks he could be very attracted to this man - not that he’s going to do anything with that yet. That’ll be John’s decision.

“Good morning, Snake.”

The tongue flops between empty lips.

“Remember me?”

His oldest and closest friend. A spike on the EEG readout confirms.

“I’m going to ask you some questions. Blink once for yes, twice for no.”

Of course Ocelot already knows everything about this man. His school records, his many lovers, his name on a list of medical draftees and his discharge. There’s even a faded newspaper clipping of him crouched over a gunshot victim in the Chicago riots of 1968 in his file - after Korea and Vietnam, but before he went back to the battlefield. Like John, he could never readjust to civilian life. Unlike John, his calling was to treat the wounded. Similarly altruistic to the concept of building a soldier orphanage or whatever the MSF was about.

This test is only to see what he remembers now, so that Ocelot will know exactly what to destroy and what to set in its place. The lover he lost in Vietnam was an artilleryman, and the wonderfully vivid memory of guts spilling between his fingers will be tricky to replace with white flowers. Of course it can be done. It will be done.

He sets headphones on the medic after a while and goes to the other side of the room.

John’s thin and wasted. Injections and massages can only do so much. The nurses haven’t been keeping his beard clipped, and the flowers are wilted.

Ocelot picks up his hand and tells himself the story. Adamska’s story. He leaves out the seventies this time - the broken bottles and revving motorcycles. Eva’s tears and regret, Adam’s enduring patience. Not so enduring as to go rot in the jungle, though. There were the children to focus on, the genome was already decoded, and then -

No, this one starts and ends in 1964. The first friend Major Ocelot ever had.  

The others didn't matter. Their answering meows and admiration meant nothing. Only John did, the red-blooded American with that cocky smirk, the first person who ever looked at him and saw nothing more than another young man. Barely more than a boy, really. He can still see the red brick of Rassvet, Snake's bright eyes without the shadow of her bandanna. 

Ocelot blinks and drops the hand when his iDroid rings.

“Where the hell have you been?”

“Miller -”

Miller cuts him off with a laugh. “I know, I know, I don’t wanna know. But what are you up to, say, next week?”

Ever since the Seychelles job Miller has been giddy. The oil rig doesn’t look like much, yet, but Miller has a hundred plans and blueprints and while this is just a side job, he needs a man he can trust.

“Even you can’t blow through three tons of heroin in one night,” Miller says smugly. “We got pure Burmese skag here. You know how much they pay for this shit in the States?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Try around a grand per gram. Ocelot. We’re talking three _hundred million_  here, ripe for the taking. Guess how many helicopters that would buy?”

“Hmm.” Ocelot considers, crossing his legs and leaning back in his chair. He finds himself counting on his fingers even though Miller isn’t here to see it. “Twelve… thousand?”

Miller laughs.

Yes, Bangkok sounds lovely.

On the flight to Kenya Ocelot leans his seat back all the way, pops a few pills, and puts on an eye mask. The old story, the new story, the man with no face, white petals on a windowsill -

Gone.

There’s no story here. If there ever was, he's long forgotten it.

In Mombasa he finds Miller hovering around the baggage carousel smoking a rare cigarette he crushes when he sees Ocelot. He grabs Ocelot by the forearm, taking in the sight and smell of him, before breaking into the usual nagging. The truth is, Ocelot slept like a baby the entire flight.

Bangkok is as beautiful and choked as he’d hoped. The Texas accent completely butchers any Thai Ocelot might have happened to pick up over the years, and he was right about the white-tiger print being perfect for Miller. White tigers aren’t truly wild animals, but inbred decorations to be paraded around casinos in Las Vegas and Singapore. Zero place in the jungle. 

Miller whines about the suits nonstop while their driver chews kratom and pretends he doesn't speak a word of English. In the end Ocelot at least gets him in the pants. Somehow it works with the tacky sports coat, the sweaty shirt, the Rolex. All he needs is the tattoos and he could be some washed up ex-yakuza who only lords over his cups these days. According to Miller Ocelot looks like an ancient dried-up hooker. Which only makes them the perfect match.  

He'd tell Miller this, but Miller is swigging gin and salivating over the kegel tricks and silicone breasts. Ocelot has no intention of feigning interest in women when he's on vacation, but the ping pong trick is pretty neat. The cigarette one is delightfully dangerous - the strippers must be getting one hell of a nicotine high from that - but in his fascination he nearly misses Miller trying to stumble off with a kathoey.

That's not going to cut it tonight. Maybe some other night, but Ocelot doesn't think he's "missing the entire goddamn point of Thailand" or whatever Miller's complaining about when he presses him into the wall in a rain-soaked alley and hitches Miller's sweat-slick thighs up around his waist. 

The climate is good for Miller. This must have been how he was in the early seventies, slippery and rank in the muddy streets of some malaria-infested banana republic. How he was when Snake fucked him. It's clear Miller spends most of his spare time with women, he's as tight as he was the last time, and Ocelot snaps his hips faster until Miller's clutching the chicken wire and sobbing -  

Lukewarm water. Not exactly a shock. Tastes a bit like... soap? Vegetables?

It's only a housewife leaning from an apartment window. Looks like she didn't take kindly to tourists screwing against her backalley chicken coop.

Miller wiggles off his dick so fast it hurts. He grabs Ocelot with one hand, uses the other to hold up his pants, and together they sprint down the alley to the main road with her curses sailing after them. Ocelot takes the lead when he trips. Not for the first time he wishes Miller wasn't so damn heavy. 

"Shit, shit, _shit_ ," Miller gasps. He needs a break already. "We did it, Ocelot. We pissed off the locals."

"Only one."

"It's a bad omen," Miller insists. Sure, like stepping on the edge of a tatami mat or whistling at night. "Hey, you got - you got some kinda cabbage on your face."

Miller picks it off, clumsily, then just sets his hand against Ocelot's face. He's very, very drunk. There's a streetlight somewhere above them, a few neon signs in shop windows reflected in his aviators. If Ocelot took them off he could see just how dilated his pupils are. 

"Where the fuck are we?" 

"Bangkok."

"No, no, no. I mean..." Miller shakes his head. _"Where._ The fuck. Are we."  

"We can ask for directions. Or else, check your iDroid." 

Miller sighs. Chuckles. Brings up his other hand and just cups Ocelot's face, rubbing his thumbs under his eyes. There's plenty of other people still out here tonight, rickshaws and motorcycles on the road, but for a minute Ocelot thinks Miller might kiss him anyways. Instead Miller drops his hands.

"Let's get something to eat, huh?" 

In the morning Ocelot’s got quite a bit of work to do. Obviously Chaiprasit Junior has many friends in low places with ties to the CIA, but there’s no reason to let Miller know that in his blind greed he’s stumbled right into a convenient XOF trap. Not the woman who’s been trailing him for the past few years, but her friends.

It's a quick enough job.

Back in the in hotel room Ocelot peels himself away from Miller’s sweaty skin. Puts a thumb where his cock was before, watching his come leak out.

Change of plans, then.

Salt wind in his hair. The roll and rise of the sea. Gentle waves, here in the gulf.

Ocelot blinks and sees caracals and ibexes. They're in disguise without the convenient Diamond Dogs armband, Miller is far away on his own boat, and overhead the clouds are gathering.

The Philosophers never assumed one of their children would grow up to be the captain of his very own pirate ship. The crew says the boat must have been sabotaged and Ocelot believes it. It happened last night while he was too busy getting dishwater dumped on his dick because no, they didn't throw her off at all, and for all Ocelot knows the two he disposed of yesterday were an intentional sacrifice and if - 

No. That line of thought solves nothing. It's already happened. The mission parameters have changed. The time limit is the waterline and the targets are - would Miller want him to save the soldiers or the heroin? On the one hand, the heroin is the entire reason why they’re here, on the other hand, Miller would pitch a fit if Ocelot left his “good men” to drown.

Any thoughts about the smack go to waste when Ocelot realizes the crates are already underwater. The boat pitches again, throwing him to the deck, but he rolls with it and lands on his feet. An ocelot always lands on his feet. But the deck is slippery and still rocking and he can’t -

Fine. This is a rescue mission. Four soldiers and one lifeboat. One cracking mast -

All targets secured.

When he sees Miller again he’s missing his glasses. But they’re safe, deep inside his coat. Miller’s hands are all over him now, tucking him into bed, and then Miller crawls in beside like a big wet dog. Stinks like one, too. He snuffles in his sleep, chasing his metaphorical sticks.

Ocelot stares at the low ceiling of the cabin and waits for the world to settle.

He’s delivered to a hospital in Ho Chi Minh City under Miller’s wing. From salty sea dog to brooding mother hen, Miller clucks and paces all over the hospital. Arguing with the nurses, tapping furiously on his iDroid and scribbling in his journal. Never still for a moment.

Ocelot is patient. When Miller finally slumps over, he slips the IV out of his arm and places a piece of tape over the insertion point. Miller doesn’t wake up when he pads over to the chair, or when he peers down at his journal. He’s been brushing up on his Japanese, but math is universal and Miller’s fevered diary is bilingual. Already Miller has calculated the losses, and there’s three different half-sketched plans on how to cover them.

Miller thinks they've broken even.

Maybe it's for the best if he believes that.

 

 

 

Adam isn’t there when John wakes up either. He’s three days late. A couple unwilling recruits - but it doesn't matter, he's here now.

The floor is covered in crushed flower petals. John is out of bed, sitting on the edge of the phantoms, tossing more petals to the floor while the radio plays an old tape. Completely unresponsive at first, but he lurches off the bed when Adam tries to turn off the tape. He’s weak, though. Heavily medicated. Easy to drag down until he’s panting, panicked, on the floor.

“John, it’s me.”

John stares.

“Remember me?”

“...Adam,” John croaks. “You look different.”

“Been a long time. I have some newer tapes for you, if you’re interested.”

_She was everything to you. Anything a woman could possibly be to a man -_

Adam raises John to his wobbly feet and leads him back to bed. Then he goes back to the phantom's side of the curtain to shut off the tape and turn off the player. He tucks it in an inner pocket before returning to sit beside John. John sags when he takes his hand, but this touch is familiar to him. It's what he knows. It's what he's got, and if he was healthy he'd be gripping hard enough to bruise. 

“I’ve missed you,” Adam says softly, and he means it.


End file.
